The new Rwanda Plan

If only the Rwanda money had been spent on speedier processing and asylum claim centres abroad.

Just read this with some horror:

"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-68907323

""Migrants: TUV distances itself from Reform UK drowning remarks"

Rwanda is a total waste of money and it will deter nobody desperate enough to cross the channel. If the French and the UK are serious about wanting to stop people dying then every boat full of people that is intercepted should be returned to France (obviously by a safe means) if the act of crossing is proved to be unsuccessful every time this would be a bigger deterrent. We should then agree with France to bring a set number of people over weekly or monthly by safe means.

I have nothing against statistics as such, but just to discuss refugees as numbers or a problem takes away the myriad stories of individuals as human beings. All lumped into the same category as LizzieDrip mentions.

As for the myth that Ireland is a desirable end point - read this from 4 months ago.

www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/06/ireland-offering-asylum-seekers-tents-housing-shortage-sleeping-rough

Nicenanny3

migrationwatchuk.org/channel-crossings-tracker

If anyone's interested.

Thank you for posting. I have looked at their site before and I am impressed.

Can’t see why anybody would call it vile.
Those who think it is might be surprised to know that many people from other countries who have settled here also think that the time has come to stop illegal immigration. I watched a prog with Asians, Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians and West Indians being interviewed in the street and they all said immigration must be controlled now.

LizzieDrip

Nicenanny3 it’s the ‘migration watch’ that’s vile. Don’t you realise this is propaganda and you’re being manipulated. Why on earth do you need to look at this data? What is wrong with you?

Err no one is manipulating me thank you, I'm interested in how many are coming over on the boats, more have arrived today, what do you think concerned British citizens should do, hide their heads in the sand.

Statistics that are non-biased and neutral are useful. The twisted statistics spewed out by Migration Watch are propaganda aimed at influencing both political policy and public opinion.

From the Institute for Race Relations:

^Migration Watch UK has a Malthusian emphasis on population growth and could probably claim responsibility for embedding key ideas into political discourse about ‘our overcrowded island’, Britain being ‘full’, and immigrants and foreign-born families being the main contributors to population growth; and immigration on its present scale as ‘unsustainable’.

Despite the fact that mainstream academic research refutes these notions, as a leading social geographer put it, ‘places rarely suffer from having too many people, but frequently suffer from a few people taking far too much’.[18] Nevertheless, Migration Watch UK, with the assistance of key parts of the media, has proved to be able to effectively mobilise public opinion around its ideas. In November 2011, with the help of the Sun[19] and the Daily Mail, Migration Watch UK gathered 100,000 signatures within a week for an e-petition calling for the government ‘to take all necessary steps to get immigration down to a level that will stabilise our population as close to the present level as possible^ irr.org.uk

LizzieDrip

Nicenanny3 it’s the ‘migration watch’ that’s vile. Don’t you realise this is propaganda and you’re being manipulated. Why on earth do you need to look at this data? What is wrong with you?

Why are statistics of any kind vile?

Statistics are very useful for future planning.

Nicenanny3 it’s the ‘migration watch’ that’s vile. Don’t you realise this is propaganda and you’re being manipulated. Why on earth do you need to look at this data? What is wrong with you?

zakouma66

How vile.

Yes people smuggling is vile isn't it. What do you suggest we do just let them all come over on the boats.

It will take a longer study, won't it? And more than a few words by the Irish PM. (Issues in Ireland similar to here atm). No hard evidence.

How vile.

migrationwatchuk.org/channel-crossings-tracker

If anyone's interested.

Small boat crossings, daily
Page 1 of 154
Date25 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date24 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date23 April 2024
Migrants detected402
Boats detected7
Date22 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date21 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date20 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date19 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date18 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date17 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date16 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date15 April 2024
Migrants detected0
Boats detected0
Date14 April 2024
Migrants detected534
Boats detected10
Date13 April 2024
Migrants detected214
Boats detected5

(Migration Watch)

No boats for the last 2 days. Could be the weather or Rwanda who knows.

My point being it isn't deterring people crossing the channel which was supposed to be a flagship point.

Can you give an accessible source, please?

My friend from Tanzania came round last night and the conversation got round to Rwanda. She says they will all be disappearing in this country rather than go to Rwanda. She cannot understand how people can “get lost” in our relatively small country. She says they don’t want to work in Rwanda or anywhere else.

When her British husband went to work in Tanzania he had a permit or visa for a set period. There was no way he could have got lost out there because they come round about a month before the visa expires and warn you that if you overstay your welcome you will be in huge trouble.

The last thing the Tories want is for a flight to actually take off,

I disagree TinSoldier.
I think Sunak is desperate for a flight to take off. The sooner the better really.

Seems the Rwanda Bill is working already with unexpected benefits. Well the EU did want a soft border.

Apparently (in the Times today) asylum seekers are crossing to N Ireland then on to the Republic of Ireland to avoid being sent to Rwanda.

What a farce.

Henry Hill - deputy editor of ConservativeHome:

It isn’t going to stop the boats. It couldn’t, even if it worked perfectly. The number of deportees Rwanda has agreed to take is only a fraction of those that would be needed to create a credible deterrent.

The best explanation for why Sunak has gone so hard on Channel crossings is that he knows he needs to have something to say about immigration, but doesn’t want to talk about legal immigration, which has risen dramatically over the course of the current parliament and far outstrips the crossings of those on small boats.

Now, there’s chatter that the Conservatives might try to make an election issue of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it continues to stymie deportations.

This is a comment made based on that article:

The last thing the Tories want is for a flight to actually take off, as it will then clearly show that the deterrence hasn’t worked, once the boat numbers keep coming.

What they actually want are the flights stopped by the ECHR. They can then go to the GE on a campaign based around leaving the EHCR in order to TAKE BACK CONTROL. It worked once for them [with Brexit], and frankly it’s their best bet now to save them from evaporation.

This is so transparent that it is almost painful.

The Rwanda Plan will cost taxpayers £1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali.

The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the National Audit Office. Even if the UK sends nobody to Rwanda, Sunak has signed up to pay £370m from the public purse over the five-year deal.

The Home Office has paid £220m into the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund (ETIF) since April 2022, and it will pay further amounts of £50m in 2024-25, £50m in 2025-26 and £50m in 2026-27.

committees.parliament.uk/work/8093/ukrwanda-migration-and-economic-development-partnership

You know that expression … Laughing all the bank to the bank? I don’t think I have ever seen anyone physically doing that but I imagine Kagame must be.

Sky news:

". The capacity of the proposed facility in Rwanda is 200 people annually, representing just 0.7% of 2023 small boat arrivals."

It's proposed it will put off people coming to UK. When its 0.7%?

But the newly passed law states that Rwanda is a safe place so surely it must be. Or at least, according to the law of this country it is now

TinSoldier once again thank you for your well-informed, intelligent post.